


Of Inkstains and Sunsets

by phantomunmasked



Category: Major Crimes (TV), The Closer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:30:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomunmasked/pseuds/phantomunmasked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Another drabbly thing I finally got round to typing up... One of the many fics i'm dedicating to Kayryn as thanks for showing us around her town when we went to visit. </p>
<p>Hope y'all like! Not beta-ed, so any and all mistakes mine.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Of Inkstains and Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kayryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayryn/gifts).



> Another drabbly thing I finally got round to typing up... One of the many fics i'm dedicating to Kayryn as thanks for showing us around her town when we went to visit. 
> 
> Hope y'all like! Not beta-ed, so any and all mistakes mine.

Sunset in L.A. was an unpredictable thing; most days the setting sun was an ordinary creature, a distant smudge of orange begrudgingly retreating for the night. Other days it was mournful, almost, in its lingering golden caress over the city’s vagrant streets. And yet, on other days – it was a thing of the greatest magnificence, a blaze of fierce reds and ambers that froze the breath in one’s throat.

 

It was on the occasion of one such magnificent sunset that Andrea found herself alone, ensconced in a familiar wicker chair on her lover’s balcony, gazing serenely at the spectacle before her.  A half drunk tumbler of whiskey sat by her hand, tiny beads of condensation adorning the crystal. Absently she reached down to the bag by her feet, drawing out a battered moleskin and what had been her father’s favourite Mont Blanc. It was in the quietest moments like this, whilst anticipation for Sharon hummed heavy in her veins, that Andrea loved to commit pen to paper, loved to somehow capture the intensity of the _longing_ she felt. For there was nothing more powerful that could compel her, Andrea had found, than the promise of safe harbour in the arms of the one woman who truly understood her for all she was. The pen was a well-balanced weight in her hand, a familiar thing that etched and flowed emotion reborn as midnight blue ink on pristine white.

 

Andrea paused, took another sip of her whiskey. Words flowed easily from her and she smiled, softly, picturing her lover in her mind’s eye. Every rumpled detail of the captain returning home from a long day at work leapt at her from memory – the slight smudges of Sharon’s eyeliner around those piercing green eyes; the weary, distracted way Sharon would tap at her phone with one hand whilst the other juggled her bag and groceries for dinner; the absent acknowledgement of Andrea’s calm progress across the room until the phone would be taken gently from Sharon’s grasp. The way Sharon’s lips always curved into that familiar smile under Andrea’s, as they greeted each other properly for the first time that day. The way Sharon would smell faintly of her favourite perfume and an undercurrent of deodorised sweat; the way Andrea would run her hands through Sharon’s tangled mane, drawing a moan of relief from the older woman as nails raked against her scalp. The way that they would not speak with words, only shared breaths as they stood together for a long, singular moment with their foreheads pressed to each others’.

 

They’d both lived through another day, and both of them knew the value of celebrating life’s small victories.

 

The setting sun was a constant companion for them as they greeted each other in the evenings, an inconstant metronome that measured the steady pulse of the world’s shifting colours. Sharon loved watching the sunset, loved the languor of simply resting in the cradle of Andrea’s arms as they watched night’s rise. And so Andrea grew to love Nature’s majesty too, grew to cherish the chances she had to commit every touch and scent of this singular woman to memory, pour her heart’s fullest content in inkwells worth upon cream and white.

Andrea hummed, smiling contentedly as she wrote, words flowing uninterrupted, watched the dip and curve of each ray and beam cast by the setting sun on the city, savoured the dancing shadows of her pen, rasping, casting emotion onto page after page.

 

“Andrea?”

 

Sharon’s voice was pitched low, so as not to startle Andrea, and she smiled fully, tossed the remnants of her whiskey back in one long swallow. The pen lay hastily forgotten upon her moleskin, nib bleeding slightly on its pages as she stood to greet her lover.

 

“Out here.”

 

Andrea stood, and realised too late she had inkstains on her hands. Daddy had always told her to be careful, she mused, slightly, even as the sight of her world-weary lover greeted her.

 

“Hello.”

 

Sharon’s smile was tired, but content, and Andrea silently thanked whatever higher powers that were that Sharon had a marginally good day.

 

“Hi,” Andrea replied, reaching for Sharon. Her lover stepped willingly into Andrea’s embrace, and together they stood there for a long moment, watching the sunset out the corner of their eyes. The first stars had risen by the time Sharon pulled back, and Andrea let her go with a familiar warmth resonating in her.  
  
Sharon was home. Sharon was safe.

 

Sharon was _loved._

 

“You’ve been writing.”

 

It was not a question, merely a statement, and Andrea nodded, dipped her head shyly as Sharon smiled again, benevolently.

 

“Ah… you’ve got inkstains on your hands…”

 

Sharon’s fingers were gentle as they reached for Andrea’s, and Andrea blushed as her lover reverently traced each blotch with featherlight caresses.

 

_It was all for you, my love_ , she wanted to shout; _it was all for the sake of_ us _, for the commitment of perfection to an imperfect form._

 

_For memory is fallible, and I would not want to waste a single moment of this life that we have together, my darling._

 

_I love you._

Andrea’s heart thudded dully in her ears as Sharon broke her scrutiny of Andrea’s marred hands, flicked her curious gaze to the little black book innocuous on the table. Andrea saw the question flare to life and die in the span of the same heartbeat in Sharon’s eyes, and in her heart of hearts she sighed, grateful. For she did not know if Sharon would understand her need, this compulsion to document life’s small, everyday marvels, and she was afraid that she would be greeted with confusion, with condescension.

 

And so when Sharon drew her close for another kiss Andrea clung to her tighter, breathed her in deeper. She would show Sharon with her actions what she did not dare with her words, for what were those words but mere shadows of their passion across so many blank pages?

 


End file.
